


A Son's Love

by rebel_wren



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Angst angst angst angst, Family, Family Angst, Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Jacen is a Mamas Boy, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 22:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20955914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebel_wren/pseuds/rebel_wren
Summary: A fic following Jacen and Hera's relationship through the anniversary of Kanan's death in different years.





	A Son's Love

Jacen’s bond with his mother was always very close. He had one faint memory from when he was very little, when he felt a sudden worry for her. He looked up at his Uncle Zeb, who was sitting on the floor with him, the pair playing with his toy ships.

“Is Mommy okay?”

Zeb frowned, and looked towards the door of her room down the hall behind them, his ears twitched, and then his eyes narrowed in concern, but he smiled at Jacen.

“I’m sure she is, but I’ll go check. You stay here, kid.”

His large hand reached over to gently ruffle Jacen’s green hair as he stood up, going down the hall. Jacen giggled at Zeb’s gesture, and then occupied himself with tracking the flight of a crudely-made Y-Wing through the air, guiding it with his hand.

When Zeb opened his the door, he heard sounds that almost sounded like quiet cries, but Zeb had told him to stay put, and he hated to disobey his Uncle Zeb.

The Y-Wing’s flight was less enthusiastic after that.

* * *

Some years later, on the same day, Jacen watched his mother staring down into her mug of caf. He knew more now; his father had died on this day, that’s why she was sad. He still didn’t know how his father died. His mother always got sad talking about him, even though she said she loved to tell Jacen about him. But he hated anything that upset her.

He’d asked his Uncle Zeb last time he visited, and he simply said that his father given himself for their family, but he didn’t say how. All Jacen knew was that the Empire had something to do with it.

Jacen wanted to know. He was curious, as many children are.

But he was also sensitive. And watching his mother, he knew he couldn’t ask.

Not today.

* * *

“I still miss him everyday,” his mother confessed, her voice just barely shaking.

Jacen’s face burned with guilt. He wasn’t supposed to hear his mother like this, she’d done so much to prevent it, but here he was.

Uncle Zeb made sure to call often, but he seemed to be especially consistent on this day. His mother would let him greet Zeb, and they’d spend a little while catching up, but then there would always be something she thought Jacen would rather spend his time on than listening to, as she put it, “grown-up talk.” Playing, drawing, spending time with Chopper, or today, schoolwork.

Jacen always listened to her, doing his schoolwork, but today he positioned himself on the floor outside her door while she talked to Zeb.

“I know,” Zeb responded, his voice gruff and low. “I do too. It’s hard, but we have to keep pushing.”

“It’s been years,” his mother replied. She sounded more exhausted and more bitter than she ever had. “I’m getting tired of pushing.”

Jacen gathered his things and quickly returned to his room.

* * *

Jacen was a few years away from adulthood (or already in it, depending on the planet and culture), and he stood hand in hand with his mother on an empty, flat part of Lothal’s biggest city, made notable only by a stone column in the center that was engraved with his father’s name.

“This is where it was?” Jacen asked quietly. His mother nodded, her eyes tracing every detail of the stone.

His father had saved his family from an explosion at the old fuel depot here before Jacen was born. He knew that now. He was sure there were more details- sad, scary, painful- but everyone around him spared him from them. And Jacen didn’t mind. He knew enough, and he knew the details were very difficult for his mother.

Jacen didn’t remember the Empire very well. The war had ended when he was young, and his mother kept him sheltered from knowing too much as a child. But he knew enough now to hate them. He knew that they destroyed worlds and cultures and people. He knew that they were the source of so much of his mother’s pain. They had taken his father from them, a man that, according to everybody around him, loved his mother more than a moon loved its star, and would have loved Jacen just as much.

Jacen loved his father, even if he never met him. He loved the man that he saw in pictures and holos, that his mother and his uncles would tell him stories about. 

He squeezed his mother’s hand.

“I love you, Mom.”

His mother smiled sadly, and Jacen felt a twinge deep in his chest. Something about those words, in this place, on this day, hurt her, and he wanted to apologize.

“I love you too, Jacen,” she said.

Jacen didn’t apologize.

* * *

Some days were harder on his mother than others, and Jacen had gotten good at keeping track. His father’s birthday was hard. His mother’s anniversary with him was harder. 

The day his father died was the hardest of all.

It had been many, many years since that day first marked itself significant in his mother’s life, and she still mourned him some days. Jacen still was too young to understand love, but part of him hoped he’d love someone as much as his mother loved his father. 

The other part of him feared feeling the pain his mother felt.

He made his mother breakfast in bed, delighting himself in seeing her smile when he approached her with the tray. If he could just make her forget, even for a little while, then he did something good. He sat down next to her once she pulled herself to sit up straight and put the tray in her lap.

His mother smiled at Jacen, and seemed to inspect his face for a few moments. Everybody who knew Jacen’s father told him they looked very alike, that he has his father’s eyes, and from what Jacen had seen, he agreed. Sometimes he felt bad about it- his mother shouldn’t have to be reminded of her loss, but she would also say how happy he was that he held much of his father’s likeness (though Jacen still insisted that his nose was hers).

“I’ve spent more time without your father than with him,” his mother said. “Can you believe that?”

Jacen didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t have to say anything. She didn’t wait for an answer.

“Jacen,” she continued. “Promise me that if you love someone, you’ll tell them right away.”

Jacen wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, though he had an idea.

“I promise, Mom.”


End file.
